Protestant missionaries arrived from America in 1859. They were accompanied by a local Japanese partner Ryohei Yamanuchi. Scholars provided them with an early translation of Luther´s Small Catechism and the Common Service, the historic order of Lutheran worship. Danish and Finnish missionaries became active in Japan as well. In 1900 the first missionaries of the Lutheran Evangelical Association of Finland arrived: pastor Wellvoos with his wife and another woman missionary, Esteri Kurvinen. Lutheran work in Japan received a major impetus in 1948 when the revolution in China redirected many mission efforts to Japan. The Japan Evangelical Lutheran Church, the largest Lutheran body in Japan, has been autnonomous since 1922 and was enlarged by merger in 1962. The Japan Lutheran Church was constituted a self-governing body in 1968 and became self-supporting in 1976. The first missionaries of the Church arrived in 1948. The Kinki Evangelical Lutheran Church is autonomous since 1961 and began as an alternative to Norse mission work terminated by the rise of the People's Republic of China.

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